~ Jenn in Real (Mid) Life: Cupcakes, Dachshunds & Auntdom, Oh My!

Tag Archives: husband

One of Niece #3’s favorite songs right now, is Dear Future Husband by Meghan Trainor. I am not normally a pop music listener but when you spend a great deal of time with a 12 & 14 year-old, you get your fair share of the Top 40. I do not personally have anything against Meghan Trainor. Her songs are catchy and fairly wholesome. I would rather my nieces listen to her than say, Justin Beiber. I am not up on the back lash that she received last year from her All About that Bass. Personally, I am all for something that gives girls self-confidence. But I am also not one to over analyze a pop song either.

So this Dear Future Husband song. It is cute, and bubbly. Very bubble gum. And after hanging out with Niece #3 for a week I have heard it more than 7 million times. Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration, but if you have listened to a Top 40 station for an extended length of time you come to figure out that there are only so many songs played. So maybe it wasn’t truly 7 million times, but it feels like it. But I digress.

**I would like to take this moment to give a disclaimer. This is not intended to be a husband bashing blog post. I love my husband. And anything posted here is something that he has heard before. But lets face it, sometimes husbands are oblivious… (Hi Ed!)**

I think that my biggest issue with the song is that she is forgetting that there is a lot more to a relationship, especially a marriage than just taking you on a date and being a classy guy. Not to down play that, because you can hope to marry a gentleman, but why not focus on things like listen to me, and try to understand things from my perspective. No one knows exactly what is going on in the other’s head (Thank goodness) so learn the art of communication. I will admit that after being together for 16 years, I do understand some of my husband’s MO, but not always. For example when he is upset, he will shut down rather than want to talk about. Could be a guy thing…

My song would have talked about the art of compromise. One or the other of you is not always right. There will be fights but it is important to learn to say you are sorry when needed.

Compliments mean a lot. And sometimes are needed out of the blue. Don’t just compliment me when I am all dressed up for something special. I took the time to look nice then, I know this. Tell me I look nice when I least expect it.

Pick a damn restaurant. You are hungry, I am hungry. Why is this the same conversation over and over?

Sure the flowers on our anniversary are nice, but surprise me with flowers at another random time. (See compliments above.)

Help out around the house. Without being told.

Be appreciative. Be supportive.

And I disagree with Meghan. A little dirty mind is not necessarily a bad thing… Sometimes.

I guess that my song would not be as interesting. And not nearly as catchy. Bottom line is love me and be there. So Meghan is not too far off on all the hearts & flowers but there is a lot of important other things to keep a marriage going. Because hearts & flowers are not going to last forever. The realism is that there is no Prince Charming in the real world, but that doesn’t mean Prince A-Little-Flawed is not the perfect match for you.

I am married to a geek! My husband likes superheroes. My husband plays Magic the Gathering. My husband reads graphic novels. There is no doubt about it, he is a geek.

Now that being said, I am so beyond okay with this. In fact, after being together for 15 years, I can admit that I have found my inner geek because of him.

Now, I may not be the typical geek. I don’t read comics. I do have a couple graphic novels on my book shelf, but I have yet to read them. I am not first in line for superhero movies. In fact I have not seen a single X-men movie, nor have I seen the Avengers.

Some of you reading this might think, well then how are you a geek? What I have come to realize is that being a geek does not mean that you have the fit the Revenge of the Nerds stereotype of yesteryear. Being a geek means that you are into something that may not be mainstream. Or something that is maybe not thought of as what you should be into. And you don’t have to make apologies for it.

So I sit here before you telling you that I am a 41 year-old woman with three collectible Barbie’s on my bookshelf. All still in the box, unopened. I have an Alice Barbie from Twilight. And both a Katniss and Effie Barbie from The Hunger Games. I have a ridiculous love of Disneyland and most things Disney. I have a collection of Alice in Wonderland Disneyana and beyond. I currently have the Frozen soundtrack in the CD player in my car, and listened to it as recently as yesterday. I am a little enamored with Doctor Who. I have a tattoo of a rune from The Mortal Instruments book series. You get the point, right?

So, the way I see it everyone is a little bit of a geek. And why not. There is so much out there. Find your weird thing and embrace it. Let your freak flag fly, kids. Life is too short. I make no claims to be an uber-geek. Those of you that are, more power to you. Be happy!

A little over a week ago, Ed and I got into a fight. Not the worst one ever, but a decent fight. Like most couples, this will happen from time to time. And we work through it fine. Most of our fights are recurring, and they usually revolve around me feeling like he doesn’t give me enough compliments, or we aren’t connecting enough. And to be honest, there is usually some hormonal instability involved on my end.

This fight however came at a good time. Yes, I realize that this sounds crazy but it really did. The fight started innocently enough. Ed is terrible at making decisions, we go to get dinner, he gets irrationally mad at the fact that most drive thru menu boards do not show the whole menu and refuses to ask the voice through the speaker box any questions. I make some comment about this and he says something that shocked me.

Now to be fair, my husband is a good man. He is good to me, and would never intentionally hurt me in any way. But he made an observation of me that I would have never made and would never have guessed that someone would see about me. Was he right? Maybe, maybe not.

So I was hurt. Really hurt. And I had this overwhelming feeling that the people who were supposed to love me were the ones that end up hurting you the most. [This stems back to my mother but that is another story for another time. And also my mom is not hurtful intentionally either, just not the most supportive mother on the planet…] When I told Ed this, he got upset. So I told him how I have been feeling, very closed off, no connection, that sort of this. Kind of like I was nothing. And this upset him, more so than normal.

Those of you that know Ed, can agree that he is not overly social, or emotional. He doesn’t talk much, unless you get him on a Ed friendly subject. He is not easy to read at times. So seeing him like this, stopped me. There was more to the story.

After some talking, it turned out that he had been feeling many of the same things that I had been. But seeing as both of us are stubborn [him more than me] and one of use does not open up a lot [again him] neither one of use knew this.
It is hard to see someone who you love hurting and even more so to know that you were not aware of this.

It was my being hurt that led to a good talk with my husband. And a week of good talks. But I realized that maybe this fight was a needed thing. It was a time to actually sit and talk about stuff in our heads that doesn’t often get talked about. Sure, we talk every day. About the dogs or what is for dinner or that our DVR is too full. But we don’t talk about things in our heads. That both of us are in our forties and it is scary when you feel like there is more to life but not sure how to get it. Or that we all feel a little like we are nothing from time to time. And it made me remember that I love this man for so much more than he sees in himself. And he that connecting is important and that even when you are comfortable, you still have to make a little effort.

Now I am not saying that I want to fight all the time. But this was definitely a fight that had a purpose. Funny, how those things work out sometimes.

TA DA!

Follow Blog via Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.